Your Right to Know

One day after their final debate, Sen. Sherrod Brown and Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel began making
the closing arguments in what has been a long and contentious Senate campaign.

Brown, whose opening statement at the debate in Cincinnati touted Ohio’s new manufacturing jobs
in the wake of the auto bailout, launched a 25-stop tour of the state aimed at emphasizing Ohio’s
job growth.

Yesterday, that included stops in Cincinnati, Springfield and Lima, with an unannounced stop at
Montgomery County Democratic headquarters in Dayton, where he rallied the troops.

Mandel, meanwhile, was scheduled to appear at a Romney-Ryan event in North Canton last night and
was scheduled to join Paul Ryan’s bus tour across the state today before making national media
appearances on Sunday, according to Travis Considine, a spokesman for Mandel’s campaign.

Considine said the Republican proved in the Thursday debate that “the best path forward for Ohio
is new ideas and change in Washington.”

“Josh Mandel boldly detailed his vision to create an environment for job creation, while Sherrod
Brown danced around his record of failure as a career Washington politician,” Considine said.

Brown, meanwhile, said he thought voters who watched the debate “saw the seriousness with which
I take this job and how I wake up every day and really do fight for the private sector to create
jobs.”

He touted that job growth in Springfield, where he toured the Navistar factory and rode a truck
off the assembly line. After the tour, Jason Barlow, the head of UAW Local 402, said that at one
point before the economic recovery, the company was down to 300 employees making 35 trucks a day. “
He called us and said, ‘What can I do? What do you need in Springfield?’ ” Barlow said.

Today, he said, the plant is producing nearly 100 trucks a day and employs about 800. “The
future looks positive,” Barlow said.

Brown didn’t mention his opponent in Cincinnati or Springfield, but he made an exception before
a crowd made up largely of union members at the Montgomery County Democratic headquarters.

During that appearance, he said he expects that outside groups will spend $30 million against
him. In 2006, his campaign spent about $11 million to unseat Sen. Mike DeWine. Brown said about $6 m
illion of that was ads. A Brown spokeswoman said that in 2006, the two candidates spent a total of
about $20 million.

“We know there is going to be a record set,” he told the crowd of about 100. “And that record
set is that come Nov. 6, never in the history of this country will there have been this much
outside money spent for a losing candidate.”